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Darwinius
|image = Image:Darwinius masillae2.jpg |caption = Main slab of the Darwinius masillae holotype fossil (specimen PMO 214.214) |Row 1 title = Class |Row 1 info = Mammalia |Row 2 title = Order |Row 2 info = Primates |Row 3 title = Infraorder |Row 3 info = Adapiformes |Row 4 title = Family |Row 4 info = Notharctidae |Row 5 title = Subfamily |Row 5 info = Cercamoniinae |Row 6 title = Genus |Row 6 info = Darwinius Franzen et al., 2009 |Row 7 title = Species |Row 7 info = * D. masillae Franzen et al., 2009 (type) }} Darwinius is a genus of extinct Adapiformes, a group of basal or stem group primates from the Eocene epoch, 47 million years ago (Lutetian stage) based on dating of the fossil site.Mertz, D.F., Renne, P.R. (2005): A numerical age for the Messel fossil deposit (UNESCO World Heritage Site) derived from 40Ar/39Ar dating on a basaltic rock fragment. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg no 255: pp 7–75. The genus name, Darwinius, was named to celebrate Charles Darwin on his bicentenaryhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/may/19/ida-fossil-missing-link bottom of paragraph 5 and the species name, masillae, honors the Messel pit, where the specimen was found.) The only known fossil, dubbed Ida, was discovered in 1983 at the Messel pit, a disused shale quarry noted for its astonishing fossil preservation, near the village of Messel, about 35 kilometers (22 mi) southeast of Frankfurt am Main in Germany. The fossil, divided into a positive and negative slab after the amateur excavation and sold separately, was not reassembled until the early months of 2007, and formally published in 2009. The fossil is of a juvenile female, approximately 58 cm (23 in) overall length, with the head and body length excluding the tail being about 24 cm (9.4 in). It is estimated that Ida died at about 80–85% of her projected adult body and limb length. The scientists who published the initial paper on Darwinius described it as a significant transitional form between early primitive primates and the later prosimian and simian lineages. The creature appeared superficially similar to a modern lemur. The fossil is classified as lying near the separation of two major primate clades: one leading to the prosimians, the other to the anthropoid monkeys and, eventually, to the great apes, including Homo sapiens. However, concerns have been raised about the claims made about its relative importance, and the publicizing of the fossil before adequate information was available for scrutiny by other scientists. Taxonomy Franzen et al. (2009) place the Darwinius genus in the Cercamoniinae subfamily of the Notharctidae family within the extinct Adapiformes suborder of early primates. Darwinius masillae is the third primate species to be discovered at the Messel locality that belongs to the cercamoniine adapiforms, in addition to Europolemur koenigswaldi and Europolemur kelleri. Darwinius masillae is similar but not directly related to Godinotia neglecta from Geiseltal. The adapiforms are early primates which are known only from the fossil record, and it is unclear whether they form a suborder proper, or a paraphyletic grouping. They are usually grouped under the Strepsirrhini semiorder (which includes Lemurs, Aye-ayes and Lorisiformes) and would as such not be ancestral to the Haplorrhini semiorder which includes tarsiers and simians.Callum Ross, Richard F. Kay, Anthropoid origins: new visions, Springer, 2004, ISBN 9780306481208, p. 100 Simians are usually called Anthropoids, and while this name can be confusing, the paper uses the term anthropoids, as does associated publicity material. Simians (anthropoids) include monkeys and apes, which in turn includes humans. to show systematic position of Darwinius masillae.]] Franzen et al. in their 2009 paper place Darwinius in the "Adapoidea group of early primates representative of early haplorhine diversification". This means that according to these authors, the adapiforms would not be entirely within the Strepsirrhini lineage as hitherto assumed but would qualify as a transitional fossil (a "link") between Strepsirrhini and Haplorrhini, and so could be ancestral to humans. They also suggest that tarsiers have been misplaced in the Haplorrhini, and should be considered Strepsirrhini. To support this view, they show that as many as 6 morphological traits found in "Darwinius" are derived characters present only in the Haplorrhini lineage but absent in the Strepsirrhini lineage, which they interpret as synapomorphies. These include, among others, a cranium with a short rostrum, deep mandinullar ramus, loss of all grooming claws. They note "that Darwinius masillae, and adapoids contemporary with early tarsioids, could represent a stem group from which later anthropoid primates evolved, but we are not advocating this here, nor do we consider either Darwinius or adapoids to be anthropoids." of the skull of Darwinius]] Paleontologists have expressed concern that the phylogenetic analysis compared only 30 traits, when standard practice is to analyze 200 to 400 traits and to include fossils such as anthropoids from Egypt and the primate genus Eosimias which were not included in the analysis. This contrasts with the motive openly stated by the authors, which was to list 30 anatomical and morphological characteristics "commonly used" to distinguish extant strepsirrhine and haplorrhine primates. Paleontologist Richard Kay of Duke University thought the data could have been cherry-picked, and paleontologist Callum Ross of the University of Chicago considered the claim that Darwinius should be classified as haplorhine was "unsupportable in light of modern methods of classification." The opinion of Chris Beard, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, was that Darwinius was not a "missing link" between anthropoids and more primitive primates, but that further study of this remarkably complete specimen would be very informative and could reveal relationships amongst "the earliest and least human-like of all known primates, the Eocene adapiforms." In an interview published on 27 May, Hurum stated that he had an open mind about the possibility that the fossil might turn out to be a lemur, and that a paper on systematics to be published within about a year would mainly focus on the partial counterslab containing the inner ear and the foot bones. The Adapiformes, including Darwinius, clearly post-date the phylogenetic separation of primates and non-primate Eucharonta such as the colugos, and therefore cannot be considered a link between primates and non-primates. This separation took place in the Cretaceous, over 60 million years ago, during the diversification of the Plesiadapiformes order. Most experts hold that the higher primates (simians) evolved from Tarsiidae, branching off the Strepsirrhini before the appearance of the Adapiformes. A smaller group agrees with Franzen et al. that the higher primates descend from Adapiformes (Adapoidea). The view of paleontologist Tim White is that Darwinius is unlikely to end the argument. Philip D. Gingerich states that the seven superfamilies of Primates are commonly associated in the higher taxonomic groupings of suborders Anthropoidea and Prosimii as an alternative to Haplorhini and Strepsirrhini, depending on the position of Adapoidea and Tarsioidea. He puts forward a phylogeny in which the higher primates evolved from Darwinius, which he groups with other Adapoidea. He shows the Adapoidea together the Tarsioidea as representing early diversification of the suborder Haplorhini, and shows the Strepsirrhini as having branched off directly from the earliest primates. The Revealing the Link website uses this taxonomic grouping, and states that Darwinii is from an early group of primates, just prior to diversification into the anthropoids (monkeys, apes and humans) and the prosimians (lemurs, lorises and tarsiers). Type specimen fossil (specimen WDC-MG-210 reversed for comparison) Parts 1''' and '''2 (enclosed in dashed lines) are genuine; remainder of plate B''' was fabricated during preparation.]] The type specimen is a 95%-complete fossil, missing only its left rear leg. It has been named Ida after the daughter of Dr. Jørn Hurum, the Norwegian vertebrate paleontologist from the Natural History Museum, University of Oslo, who secured one section of the fossil from an anonymous owner, and led the research. In addition to the bones, remains of Ida's soft tissue and fur outline are present, along with remnants of her last meal of fruit and leaves. Shortly after dying at the edge of the lake, Ida's body appears to have sank to the bottom of the lake on its back before settling and ultimately fossilizing on is side. The animal is about 58 cm from nose to tail, or roughly the size of a small, long-tailed cat. The fossil is placed within the primate family tree along with other fossil primates. Ida was originally thought to be a primitive lemur, but comparative tests revealed her to have simian ("anthropoid") features. This indicates that she is a transitional fossil between primitive lemur-like primates and the monkeys, including the human lineage. Two of the key anatomical features found in lemurs are not present in the fossil: a grooming claw on the foot and a fused row of teeth, a toothcomb, in the bottom jaw. Instead, she has a short face with forward facing eyes like humans as opposed to the long face of a lemur, nails instead of claws, and teeth similar to those of monkeys. The fossil's hands have five fingers and exhibit human-like opposable thumbs.Early Primate Provides Evolution Clues, a May 19, 2009 article from ABC News These would have provided a "precision grip" which, for Ida, was useful for climbing and gathering fruit. Ida also had flexible arms and relatively short limbs. s of the Darwinius holotype fossil, revealing the fabricated parts of the counter-slab]] Digital reconstructions of Ida's teeth reveal that she has unerupted molars in her jaw, indicating that she was about 8 months old, or the equivalent of a 9 year old human. The shape of Ida's teeth provides clues as to her diet; jagged molars would have allowed her to slice food, suggesting that she was a leaf and seed eater. This is confirmed by the remarkable preservation of her gut content. Furthermore the lack of a baculum (penis bone) means that the fossil was most likely female. X-rays performed on Ida revealed that her right wrist was healing from a fracture, which may have contributed to her death. The scientists speculate she was overcome by carbon dioxide fumes whilst drinking from the Messel lake. Hampered by her broken wrist, she slipped into unconsciousness, was washed into the lake and sank to the bottom, where unique fossilization conditions preserved her for 47 million years. Scientists Unveil Missing Link In Evolution An early article on Yahoo.com Diet Study of the stomach contents in Plate '''B (shown at right) has shown evidence of plant leaves and a fruit in the digestive tract. No insect remains were found in the stomach, which was expected due to the size and mass (650–900 g) of Ida. Discovery and acquisiton The events regarding the original unearthing of the fossil are not clear, though some facts are known. It was found in the Messel pit Schildkrötenhügel (Turtle Hill), although the exact horizon is unknown, in 1983, after the pit had been closed to amateur fossil hunters in preparation for using the site as a landfill. The fossil came as a slab and partial counter slab, and was expertly prepared by encasing each slab in resin using the transfer technique necessary to conserve Messel fossils. At some point the slab and counter slab went separate ways. The counter slab was incorporated in a composite of fabricated parts to represent a complete specimen, and arrived at a private Wyoming museum in 1991. Analysis by Jens Franzen of the Natural History Museum of Basel, Switzerland revealed that the mixed actual and faked nature of this slab.Franzen, J.L. (1994), in Anthropoid Origins (eds Fleagle, J. F. & Kay, R. F.) pp. 99-122 (Plenum, New York) A comparison of the two slabs indicates that the forger had access to the whole fossil. The primary slab remained in Germany, in the possession of a private collector who kept it secret for twenty years before deciding to sell it anonymously via a German fossil dealer.Fossil Ida: extraordinary find is 'missing link' in human evolution, a 19 May 2009 article from The Guardian The significance of the fossil was first recognized by vertebrate palaeontologist Jørn Hurum, who was shown photographs of the specimen through a chance encounter at the Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in 2006, where a dealer offered the fossil for $1 million.Fossil Ida: extraordinary find is missing link in human evolution, a 19 May 2009 article from The Guardian Two German museums turned it down as too expensive, then a year later at the Hamburg Fossil and Mineral Fair in December 2006 the dealer asked vertebrate palaeontologist Dr. Jørn Hurum, who had done some previous deals, to discuss something privately. The dealer showed Hurum three high resolution color photographs of the fossil, and told him that the asking price was $1 million. Dr. Hurum knew that it was a primate, and according to Tudge's book "was fast concluding that the specimen he was looking at could be one of the holy grails of science — the 'missing link' from the crucial time period." He asked for time until after Christmas to organize funding to pay for the specimen and ensure that it had been legally collected, had an export permit and would be legitimately available for study. His first choice was the Natural History Museum of Oslo, but it was beyond their means and he began to think of other museums with sponsors available. He persuaded the Oslo museum to make half the funding available, with the remainder to be paid only after X-ray scans proved conclusively that it was not a fake, a process which took several months. He put together a team including leading German experts on the Messel fossils, ensuring international ownership. After its acquisition, Ida was studied in secret for two years by a team of scientists; Hurum was joined by primate evolution expert Professor Philip Gingerich of the University of Michigan, and paleontologists Dr. Jens Franzen and Dr. Jörg Habersetzer of the Senckenberg Museum’s Research Institute. Publication s, which which provides a good grip.]] Negotiations were put in place for a book and with various broadcasters for documentary programs, all of whom agreed to keep the project secret. A deal went through in the summer of 2008 with The History Channel which has been reported as paying more for this than any other documentary. The team decided to publish their findings online in PLoS ONE, an open access journal of the Public Library of Science. The paper for publication was received by PLoS ONE on March 19, 2009, and accepted on May 12, 2009. On May 10, 2009, the Daily Mail published reports that the BBC had made a documentary revealing the discovery of what might be a vital ‘missing link’ in human evolution, giving an outline of the study and its intended publication date as well as a brief statement from Gingerich. On May 15, the Wall Street Journal carried a report with interviews with Gingerich and with Tim White, who cautioned that "Lemur advocates will be delighted, but tarsier advocates will be underwhelmed". At about the same time a press release headed "World Renowned Scientists Reveal a Revolutionary Scientific Find That Will Change Everything" announced that the find was "lauded as the most significant scientific discovery of recent times." On May 19, 2009, the team revealed their findings to the world at a press conference, and simultaneously in a paper published online in PLoS ONE, an open access journal of the Public Library of Science (officially published in print on May 21, 2009). The paper included a statement that the authors were not advocating the possibility that the species could be ancestral to later anthropoid primates; Professor John Fleagle, of Stony Brook University in New York state, asserted that he was one of the anonymous scientific reviewers of the paper, and that he had explicitly requested before publication that the authors tone down their original claims that the fossil was on the human evolutionary line. At the press conference, the fossil was described as the "missing link" in human evolution. Hurum said that "This fossil rewrites our understanding of the evolution of primates... It will probably be pictured in all the textbooks for the next 100 years," and compared its importance to the Mona Lisa painting. He also said that Darwinius was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and that finding it was "a dream come true". Team member Dr Jens Franzen said the state of preservation was "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", with information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", but while he said it bore "a close resemblance to ourselves" in some aspects, other features indicated that it was not a direct ancestor. Hurum considered that the risk of buying the fossil had paid off, and said that "You need an icon or two in a museum to drag people in, this is our Mona Lisa and it will be our Mona Lisa for the next 100 years." He has been described as "a modern-era, media-savvy scientist with the right amounts of showmanship, populist sensibility, and disregard for the normal avenues of scientific prestige required to pull this off." The debut in "an astonishingly slick, multi-component media package" required exceptional coordination between networks, museums, producers and scientists while maintaining a level of secrecy which is hard to attain in modern circumstances. In interviews published on 27 May, Hurum stated that it was good that they had got the message out that primates were rooted deep in time, but that some of the slogans were too much and the publicity got completely out of control. He disclosed that he paid nearly $750,000 (£465,000) for the specimen, far more than had been paid for any fossil primate ever found but felt it was worthwhile to make the fossil available for scientific investigation instead of it being bought by a private collector and hidden away. Others including Chris Beard were concerned that the price and publicity could lead to profiteering by amateur collectors, and make acquisition of specimens for research purposes more difficult. Publicity and media coverage thumb|300px|right|Analysis of Plate B by renowned paleontologist Dr. [[Robert Bakker.]] Having previously experienced how the blogosphere had picked up on his work, and seen Chinese dinosaur finds the object of bad early descriptions from blogging, Jørn Hurum decided to orchestrate launch of the fossil in a combined scientific and public event. Atlantic Productions, which had cooperated with Hurum on a program on the Predator X, a giant pliosaur from Svalbard, was brought in on the project in order to "take story straight to the masses in a way that would appeal to the average person, especially kids". The press conference and paper on the fossil was accompanied by the launch of a website, the publication of a book which had already been distributed to bookstores, The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestors by Colin Tudge,Tudge, Colin. (2009). The Link: Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestors. Little Brown. and the announcement of a documentary (Uncovering Our Earliest Ancestor: The Link), made by Atlantic Productions in the UK, directed by Tim Walker and produced by Lucie Ridout, to be screened six days later on the History Channel (US), BBC One (UK), and various stations in Germany and Norway. The New York Daily News noted that "The unveiling of the fossil came as part of an orchestrated publicity campaign unusual for scientific discoveries." One of the paper's co-authors, paleontologist Philip D. Gingerich, told The Wall Street Journal that they had chosen to publish in PLoS ONE as "There was a TV company involved and time pressure" and they had been pushed to finish the study. In an interview, Jørn Hurum said that PLoS ONE had been chosen as it was open access, and the research had been funded by Norwegian taxpayers who would benefit from free access. Dr. Hurum went on to say that PLoS ONE did not restrict the length of manuscript or number of illustrations, and that "PLoS ONE is the quickest way to publish a large work in the world!" [[Video:Darwinius masillae - 3D Skeleton model - V2|thumb|250px|Digital movie of the skeleton of Darwinius.]] At the time its discovery was announced in the scientific and the popularA History Channel documentary, The Link, devoted to the discovery is slated to air 25 May 2009. press, the fossil was characterized as the "most complete fossil primate ever discovered"; Sir David Attenborough has described it as "extraordinary".The Implications from revealingthelink.com Google commemorated the unveiling with a themed logo on May 20, 2009. During a ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History Hurum said that "This specimen is like finding the Lost Ark for archeologists" and "It is the scientific equivalent of the Holy Grail. This fossil will probably be the one that will be pictured in all textbooks for the next 100 years." Criticism .]] Independent experts have raised concern about publicity exaggerating the importance of the find before information was available for scrutiny. Dr. Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, was "awestruck" by the publicity machine but concerned that if the hype was exaggerated, it could damage the popularization of science if the creature was not all that it was hyped up to be.Paleoanthropologist Elwyn Simons of Duke University stated that it is a wonderful specimen but most of the information had been previously known, and paleoanthropologist Peter Brown of the said that the paper had insufficient evidence that Darwinius was the ancestral anthropoid. Brian Switek, an ecology and evolution university student and blogger, described that the fossil was spectacularly complete and "the first time a fossil primate has been found exhibiting such extraordinary preservation,", but also deplores the sensationalist coverage and a lack of adequate research in the published paper to back claims that it is an ancestor of the earliest anthropoids, that is the "higher primates" infraorder grouping all monkeys and apes. Hurum said that Darwinius was "the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor" and that finding it was "a dream come true". Team member Dr Jens Franzen said the state of preservation was "like the Eighth Wonder of the World", with information "palaeontologists can normally only dream of", but while he said it bore "a close resemblance to ourselves" in some aspects, other features indicated that it was not a direct ancestor. In a column in The Times, Switek stated that a unique opportunity to communicate science had been lost, with press releases forestalling the necessary discovery and debate which should now proceed. Others also criticized claims that the fossil represents the "missing link in human evolution", arguing that there is no such thing unless evolution is visualized as a chain as there are an infinite number of missing branches, and that while the fossil is a primate, there is no evidence to suggest that its species is a direct ancestor of humans. Dr Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature, said the term "missing link" was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance, which was unlikely to match that of Homo floresiensis or feathered dinosaurs. Dr Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said he "would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans." Rutgers University undergraduate and respected blogger Brian Switek criticized the fossil in a ScienceBlogs entry entitled "Poor, poor Ida, Or: 'Overselling an Adapid'". While describing the fossil as spectacularly complete and "the first time a fossil primate has been found exhibiting such extraordinary preservation", he deplored the sensationalist coverage and lack of adequate research in the published paper to back claims that it is an ancestor of the earliest anthropoids, that is, the "higher primates" infraorder grouping all monkeys and apes. The authors of the paper describing Darwinius have themselves expressed dissatisfaction with the media campaign. Phil Gingerich, one of the scientists who studied the "Ida" fossil, was quoted in The Australian, saying that there was "a TV company involved and time pressure." He said that the authors were "pushed" to rush the paper to press. "It’s not how I like to do science," Gingerich concluded.Dayton, L. "Scientists divided on Ida as the missing link." The Australian, May 21, 2009. Others have disagreed with this. See also * List of fossil primates * List of human evolution fossils * List of transitional fossils * Transitional fossil References External links * PLoS ONE free journal article available here. * www.revealingthelink.com - The inside story revealing the significance of the new primate fossil Ida. * [http://csotonyi.com/Darwinius_masillae_Csotonyi.html Life restoration of Darwinius masillae by paleoartist Julius T. Csotonyi] Category:Eocene primates Category:Fossil species described in 2009 Category:Prosimians Category:Prehistoric mammals of Europe